William Joseph Kennedy (born January 16, 1928) is an American writer and journalist born and raised in Albany, New York. Many of his novels feature the interaction of members of the fictional Irish-American Phelan family, and make use of incidents of Albany's history and the supernatural.

Book Description

LEGS inaugurated William Kennedy's cycle of novels set in Albany, New York. True to both life and myth LEGS evokes the flamboyant career of the legendary gangster Jack "Legs" Diamond, who was finally murdered in Albany.

Through the equivocal eyes of Diamond's attorney, Marcus Gorman (who scraps a promising political career for the elemental excitement of the criminal underworld), we watch as Legs and his showgirl mistress, Kiki Roberts, blaze their gaudy trail across the tabloid pages of the 1920s and 1930s.

"Pure literary excitement...easy to read and hard to put down. I enjoyed it from beginning to end and wished it were longer." --Joseph Heller